Keppel has secured a 720 megawatt (MW) powerbank capacity for an AI data centre campus near Melbourne, Australia.
This comes together with Keppel’s Connectivity Division securing the rights to lease a 123-hectare contiguous site near Morwell, Victoria, in phases and over time, from Australian energy and infrastructure landowner Lightwood Group.
Keppel will pay Lightwood an annual access fee to gain early access to the site for the pre-development works, including obtaining planning approvals and contracting power and water before its private data centre funds take up long-term leases.
This brings Keppel’s pipeline of data centre powerbank to over 1 gigawatt of gross power capacity in Asia Pacific.
The site is located at one of Melbourne’s largest electricity nodes, and has a dedicated transmission connection to neighbouring power terminal stations which provides potential for power cost savings by bypassing the local distribution network.
Zoned to allow data centre development, the site also benefits from existing water infrastructure and proximity to intercity dark fibre networks, which will enable high performance connectivity to Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.
See also: Lum Chang’s JV company in Malaysia enters agreement to develop data centre in Petaling Jaya, KL
“Digitalisation and AI are reshaping global compute needs, and Keppel is positioning ahead of this megatrend by investing upstream to secure early and exclusive access to power, water, and fibre connectivity at strategic sites in key data hubs. Our powerbanking strategy enables us to deliver shovel-ready capacity at speed and scale, significantly shortening time to development and service readiness, and without overburdening our balance sheet,” says Manjot Singh Mann, CEO of Connectivity, Keppel.
Shares in Keppel closed 12 cents higher or 1.125% up at $10.79 on Jan 15.
